Is spin our ultimate weapon? Is an SLA infested attack the way to go? Jeeshan Mirza dwells on the significance of spin bowling in the context of Bangladesh cricket and whether a spin-heavy attack is indeed what we need to conquer the world.

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In economics, the theory of comparative advantage explains a country should specialize in making and exporting goods and services that it can produce most efficiently. In a way this idea can also apply to sports like cricket. Every cricketing nation seems to have the ability to unearth talent in certain areas much more easily than others. India has the ability to produce run scoring machines, Pakistan unearths skillful swing bowlers with ease, South Africa is known for their world class all-rounders and fielders, while Australia has always been good with genuine fast bowlers. Bangladesh too seems to have the ability to produce a category of players with ease - slow left arm spinners (SLA’s).

not many spinners are on the level of murali and warne, strike rates of under 60 in tests as spinners, not many can compare to that. saeed ajmal is potentially a great, his first few test matches weren't so good but since then he's been right up there, swann over 44 matches still has a strike rate of under 60 so he's up there to, and herath has been fairly decent to since murali's retirement.

We desperately need some good off-spinners and leggies. seeing the dying art in leggies, even a quality off-spinner would do nowadays. We really need an off-spinner who can bowl like hafeez or johan botha, swann and ajmal are too good for now.

Its convinced me that from the article we dont need to have extra pacers which isnt our strong suit. I think 2 pacers is good because we need to set up a strategy to win the game. Having more spinners in the team will make us a stronger team because the spin department is our strong suit. No more following the rest of the other countries and having 3 pacers. Lets mix it up and play our own style of cricket. The style in which we are strong at. The more spinners the better.

Having two good seamers is good enough. The tendency to think we need 3 pacers is a mindset issue which we need to overcome. Even if the wicket is conducive for pace bowling, the limited skills of our pacers mean they will never be able to exploit it (Anyway it is rare to see three seamers finish their quota of 30 overs). So we might as well play three quality spinners. Actually we are lucky because Shakib and is an allrounder we will be able to field such a combination. If you are still not convinced learn from Pakistan. They have enough of pace bowlers to play 3-4 of them in a game. But why wont they do that? Because they know other teams will stutter against their spin- Ajmal, Abdur Rehman, Hafeez, Afridi. So they play 3 spinners in most games-ODI, Test or T20.

So maybe this is a lineup we should focus on developing-if we want to win i.e, not just compete

Having two good seamers is good enough. The tendency to think we need 3 pacers is a mindset issue which we need to overcome. Even if the wicket is conducive for pace bowling, the limited skills of our pacers mean they will never be able to exploit it (Anyway it is rare to see three seamers finish their quota of 30 overs). So we might as well play three quality spinners. Actually we are lucky because Shakib and is an allrounder we will be able to field such a combination. If you are still not convinced learn from Pakistan. They have enough of pace bowlers to play 3-4 of them in a game. But why wont they do that? Because they know other teams will stutter against their spin- Ajmal, Abdur Rehman, Hafeez, Afridi. So they play 3 spinners in most games-ODI, Test or T20.

So maybe this is a lineup we should focus on developing-if we want to win i.e, not just compete

Now, There are 3 specialist spinners and 2 part time spinners if you include Ash. While we have only 2 specialist pacers and no part timers... So the pace department is too vulnerable. Bowling will look too one dimensional. If we can have one part time medium pacer/ Alrounder, that would make this line up stronger. Because he can be an option if another pacer has a bad day or injury during match.

While I completely agree that we should have 3 specialist spinner and spin should be our main attack to win matches. Bcoz that's what we have in abundance.

Zia could be that Medium pace Allrounder.... Kapil dev of the team... Mullah is as good as Razzak with ball, if not better at times. He should be used as a specialist spinner. So it's between Razzak/Sunny to chose the third specialist spinner.

Originally Posted by BANFAN
Now, There are 3 specialist spinners and 2 part time spinners if you include Ash. While we have only 2 specialist pacers and no part timers... So the pace department is too vulnerable. Bowling will look too one dimensional. If we can have one part time medium pacer/ Alrounder, that would make this line up stronger. Because he can be an option if another pacer has a bad day or injury during match.

While I completely agree that we should have 3 specialist spinner and spin should be our main attack to win matches. Bcoz that's what we have in abundance.

Zia could be that Medium pace Allrounder.... Kapil dev of the team... Mullah is as good as Razzak with ball, if not better at times. He should be used as a specialist spinner. So it's between Razzak/Sunny to chose the third specialist spinner.

this is what i meant when i said if we only take 2 specialist pacers going in you need an allrounder or one of your batsmen to be a capable enough pacer to fill in if needed.